Chapter Two
My heart thuds rapidly at the noise that makes me jump and spin around rapidly. Shit, it's just Potter. He slammed the door behind him and now he's leaning against it, panting, and looking at me in shock. Why does he always find me in bathrooms with a wet face?
"Malfoy." He says by way of greeting, between pants. Water drips from my nose. I don't detect the normal waves of hostility radiating from him due to my presence. He probably doesn't have the energy.
He's not going to tell me why he's here, but I infer that he's hiding from the journalists, who I hear down the corridor. The castle must have been opened up to the non-war-fighting public, and of course everybody wants the scoop.
"Potter." I say, with only the slightest animosity. "You did it."
"What?" He says, distractedly, trying to peer back through the strip of frosted glass, keeping his hand on the doorknob.
"You defeated the Dark Lord. Remember? Pale bloke, bit of a temper?" I let my annoyance flare at his humble attitude.
Potter's head snaps in my direction, and he tries to assess me.
"Don't you start bloody fawning all over me as well, Malfoy." He says, nodding in the direction of the horde. "I couldn't take it if you turned into one of them."
"Not likely." I snort, inspecting my nails for something else to look at, while dredging up something witty to say. "I was just saying earlier how you're the only git annoying enough to get the Dark Lord to commit suicide. You didn't even have to curse him."
Potter cracks what looks like a painful smile. "I like it put that way."
I want to scathingly enquire about where his loyal sidekicks are, but it strikes me that they could be dead. I'm a bastard, but there's a line. Especially when he has a wand and I don't. Instead, I dry my face on a grubby towel.
The silence hangs around us, and it strikes me that we're standing in a room filled with toilets and surrounded by death. And that I don't have anything to lose.
"My trial is tomorrow." I blurt out.
"What? You didn't do anything." Potter says, shaking his head.
"I did enough." I reply, rubbing my left arm.
There's another long silence. I feel the competitive need to match Potter's gaze, which is ridiculously forthright. Seven years of knowing each other and we've barely looked at each other, really. He better not be thinking about how ugly I look, because he's not exactly gorgeous himself. I doubt his hair's seen a pair of scissors or a comb since he was born, he has sunken cheeks and a pale face to match mine, and he looks even more sleep deprived than I do. He has grown up a bit, though, as evidenced by the light stubble forming on his face.
"What will you do if you're found guilty?" He asks, suddenly, once he's finished eyeballing me.
I find the question stupid, so I resort to sarcasm. "I was thinking of an island holiday in Azkaban for a few years if that happens. To celebrate."
His annoyance blazes visibly, and I feel a small thrill. Minuscule, really. I watch him struggle to quell it.
"You're still a sarcastic bastard, Malfoy. I'd have thought you'd change, given what's happened."
Now, that stung. Except I can hide my reaction. "You know where to go if you want your arse kissed." I fold my arms and nod to the door, behind which I can hear people still milling around in the corridor, having lost Potter and not yet spotted the bathroom.
He glares at me and moves away from the door, as if to punctuate that an arse-kissing isn't what he wants. "What will you do if you're found not guilty?"
Huh. What will I do? I suddenly envision a bright future, in which I could do anything. A list of suitable careers flit across my mind, working at Gringotts, for the Ministry, as a Professor... and I find I don't really want to do any of them. Then I become annoyed at this whole train of thought.
"What does it matter, it's not going to happen," I snap, "And it's none of your business anyway."
"Right." He says, struggling with annoyance again. He regains composure, and continues. "Except that it is my business, because if you're going to weasel out of this and continue being a Death Eater, then I'll take you to Azkaban myself right now and you won't even have a trial."
"A threat?" I retort, surprised and slightly impressed. "Think you could override the justice system?"
"There is no justice system any more, thanks to Voldemort."
My heart constricts painfully at the name - as though I can feel him right behind me, icy breath on my back. I almost flinch, but I've learned to quell it. A hard lesson.
Potter continues his train of thought, aloud, looking into the same mirror I looked at myself in. "Everything's in pieces; we have to sort out over a hundred trials, double that in funerals, and we have to do it as quickly as we can without being ruthlessly inaccurate. I don't want innocent people going to Azkaban."
I notice the use of we, and find it remarkable that he slots himself so easily into a leadership role when all about him is chaos. I feel my shoulders sag, resigned to my own fate, a curling blackness encroaching at the edges of my vision. "I'm anything but innocent."
Potter looks at me again, this time with shock, as if to verify it's still me talking. The silence goes on, giving my statement more meaning than I wanted. It's not like I meant to blurt my guilt in front of Harry flipping Potter, the umpteenth-time saviour of the Wizarding World. My parents would have a heart attack if they heard me.
"None of us are really innocent anymore." Potter says simply, and shrugs.
I remember the horrifying moment he walked in on me, what was it, two years ago? I remember thinking I could simply kill someone to fix everything. Being naively surprised that Potter would know a Dark Spell to slash me to ribbons in a mere minute. Facing death, being dimly aware of Potter's own little flirtation with murder. Clutching him tight enough to hurt when all about us, Fiendfyre raged. Seeing Potter's pathway to ultimate victory lined with corpses, many from his own side.
"So we all belong in Azkaban." I state, deliberately misinterpreting. I vaguely wanted to say it maliciously, but I suppose I don't have the energy, because it comes out softly.
Potter shakes his head, in a sort of rueful way. "No, I'm starting to realise... This whole thing isn't simply innocent versus guilty. Evil people can do good things, and good people can do evil things. I saw Gellert Grindelwald."
My eyebrows raise involuntarily. "The Grindelwald? He's still alive?"
"Not anymore." Potter actually appears sad about this, and my expression becomes even more confused. "His final act was good, and heroic, and he felt genuine remorse for all the terrible things he did."
I'm getting a bit creeped out by this point. Is he bloody omnipotent or something? My eyes narrow. "How do you know this stuff?"
Potter closes off, looking sad. "It's not important how I know. Just that I do. I know that in all kinds of circumstances, people do all kinds of things, even people you don't expect. "
All the horrendous things I've done flash in my head, one after the other, as though I'm torturing myself with Occlumency. I fish around for a subject change, quickly. Then I think, why am I having a lengthy conversation with Potter? I might as well get to the point.
"Look, I know you aren't going to testify at the trials, but if you did it for my mother they'd listen to you... she couldn't cope in prison. And she doesn't even have the Mark, it was all me and Father..." I picture my mother, golden haired and broken in a freezing, dank cell. Potter's jaw sets and his glasses suddenly frame icy, hard eyes.
My insides go cold to match, hope draining from me. But then, I expected this.
"Why do you think I won't testify?" He snaps, stance immediately aggressive. "Think I'm too lazy? Absorbed in my own glory?"
"What?" I say, shocked and slightly defensive. "It's nothing to do with me, Shacklebolt says you won't be asked to."
"Why not?" Potter says, flicking his hair out of his eyes with annoyance, like he has done since we were First-Years. It has the added effect of prominently displaying his usually half-hidden scar.
"Don't ask me." I shrug, trying to appear unconcerned. I start to bring the subject back to my mother, but Potter scowls and stomps back to the door. "But if you—"
"We'll see about this." He says, and wrenches the door open.
With that, Potter leaves, and noise flares as journalists start tossing questions his way. I hear him yelling at them to sod off, but they persist.